


My mother's love

by SpicyBiscuit



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Body Dysphoria, Bullying, Character Study, Coming Out, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Mother-Son Relationship, Negetive body image, Pre-Canon, Self-Hatred, Teen Oswald Cobblepot, Trans Oswald Cobblepot, Trans character written by trans author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24321568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicyBiscuit/pseuds/SpicyBiscuit
Summary: He was always her precious baby girl. How could he tell her that he wanted to be her son?
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot & Gertrud Kapelput
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	My mother's love

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: Gender dysphoria, negative body image, bullying, self hatred.

He was born as Ilka Kapelput, daughter of Gertrud Kapelput. Gertrud was ecstatic to have a daughter. She bought her child dresses, gave her the dolls from her own childhood and taught her to be polite as she had been by her mother. Watching her child grow up made her proud; she knew she would blossom into a beautiful woman just like herself. But there were things that Gertud didn't know about Ilka. Things that her child was always thinking about, things her child felt, and a huge secret she couldn't seem to tell her mother. 

As a child, Ilka was always fine with playing with dolls and wearing dresses, though he never really managed to fit in with the other girls. Maybe that was because he was a strange child. His mother mainly spoke Hungarian to him, so when he started school he struggled with communication, due to his lack of English knowledge. He picked up on it fast, but he fell behind quickly due to the different rules and structures of both languages. The other kids thought his accent was weird and would make fun of it, then made fun of his mother. He hated it, and tried twice as hard to adopt a 'normal' accent and develop his English. 

The other kids would also make fun of his appearance. He was very short, with raven hair, and pale skin with freckles dotting his cheeks and pointy nose. People had often said he looked like a bird, which always bothered him. Even after birds became his favourite type of animal, and he began caring for them. Then, when gained a lot of weight easily from his mother spoiling him, the girls would make fun of that and boys would taunt him about how no one would date him if he didn't get thinner. He tried not to care, but it was hard when their remarks got worse, and they became physical. 

He would come home with bruises, and no matter how much he insisted his mother got more and more upset that no one seemed to care enough about him to step in. When Gertrud had enough of seeing her child coming home hurt, and hearing him crying in his room late at night, she marched down the school and complained. But of course, the bullies just won. 

"Your daughter has been picking fights with the other children, ma'am. I suggest you teach her manners" The teacher had told her, and Ilka almost broke down right there. It wasn't his fault at all. They hurt him because he was different. They told him lies, insulted him, made fun of him and his mother. He was brought up polite and well-mannered, but sometimes he just wanted to punch their faces in. However, he knew if he fought back properly the school would then step in, but immediately punish him instead. Because who cares about the child of a poor, single-mother immigrant. 

Gertrud wanted to move him to a different school, but there was none close enough, and she didn't feel like she had enough knowledge to give him a good education at home. So he tried to get through the last few years, but the bullying got worse and he eventually retaliated after a particularly nasty comment about his mother. He got suspended for two weeks, but breaking her nose felt good, and Gertrud had just laughed when he told her and called her a 'kurva'. 

In the time when he was off, Gertrud continued to teach him piano. He learned the lullaby Tente Baba Tente, Heart and soul, and even the lullaby Gertrud would sing him at bedtime. They cooked together, and she taught him a few new recipies. Those two weeks were the happiest he had been in a while, especially since his mother was appreciative of him coming to her defense, instead of scolding him for hurting someone. But good things never last, as as soon as he came back the bullying was worse than before. 

When he finally hit puberty at 10, he was excited at first. He was starting his development into a woman. He thought that this change would finally make him fit in with the other girls, finally make something click to make him normal. Then he wouldn't be such a freak. But as time went on, he only felt worse. Clothes clung to parts of his body he was becoming more aware of, and he began hating his body more than he did before. Unlike before when he was excited to wear a bra like a girl should, he was beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable with the way they made it more noticeable. Dresses began to feel too exposing, and all he wanted to do was cry when he went into public.

Even in the comfort of his own home they made him upset. Now, not only did his body feel just as disgusting and ugly as everyone said it was, he hated the parts of him that he was told to be proud of. Looking at boys started to make him jealous. They could wear shirts without bumps showing, they could wear clothes that weren't designed to cling to their shape. The more time passed the more ugly he felt, like a Caterpillar that was unable to Metemorphsise. 

One year, his mother once helped him put makeup on for a party, but it felt weird on his skin and didn't make him feel pretty at all. A few people at the party complemented him on the makeup, but it honestly felt more condescending, hidden behind a fake smile. Like the few birthday parties he had been to, people still just ignored him, excluded him from the party games, so he just ended up sat in the corner miserably eating a plate full of cookies wanting to go home. He tried to do it a few times but it never had the same effect on him that apparently everyone else had. It was like nothing would ever change. 

Something was so wrong about it. He should've been happy to develop these things that people said made him a woman, but he wanted them gone. When he saw other girls grow and seem happy in their bodies, he wished he knew why he wasn't like them. Why he couldn't be happy with himself for one minute of his life. Why he could never feel normal. 

He wanted to know why, when a guy finally started to compliment him, he wanted to throw up as soon as he mentioned his body. Why he almost broke down crying when a girl played with his hair and told him he was a pretty girl. Why every month around his period he would feel depressed. His mother told him that one was normal, but he always suspected it was more than unbalanced hormones. 

At 15 he asked his mother to cut his hair short, and she cut it above his shoulders. Although it didn't feel short enough, he felt better with it not at his hips. It was a start, but after a few days the feeling went away and the effect wore off. Not short enough. 

A month later he had enough. He took the fabric scissors from her sewing box, took himself into the bathroom and cut his hair in a blind rage. Chunks of black fell around him as he shook, just hacking away without focusing on style. He only stopped when his brain finally kicked in and he saw himself in the mirror. His hair looked awful. Tears fell down his face as he stared at himself. Ugly. He looked ugly, just as he always had been. He cried and cried, as he sat on the floor curling into himself.

When his mother found him half an hour later, she pulled him into a hug and cradled him to her. They sat there for a while, before she took the scissors, sat him on the edge of the bath and fixed his hair. Now it wasn't so manic looking, but it was still too feminine. 

Weeks went by and he was finding it hard to keep it together. The bullying continued, the feelings never went away, and all he could do was try not to break down in public. All he had was dresses and a few shirts that were slightly too small. He ended up borrowing a cardigan, or wearing his coat to try and hide it. The extra layer helped, but just a bit. 

Soon all the self hatred, dysphoria, and pain became too much. He hated being a girl. He wanted to be a man, with a flat chest and a penis. He wanted a deep voice. He wanted the opposite of what he was born with. It just wasn't fair! Everyone was happy with who they were, and he knew he would never have the same feelings towards himself. 

Everything came crashing down one day, as he came home. Without changing, he walked to his bedroom, collapsed on his bed and cried into his pillow. His mother came in, voice filled with concern as she sat down on the bed and rubbed his back. 

"What is it, my love? You have been hiding something from me, and it hurts you. What is wrong?"

"You'll hate me" He mumbled. Gertrud was incapable of hating her child, not matter what. But coming out was terrifying, and no matter how certain you were that they would be okay with it, it could always go wrong. She was all he had. He couldn't loose her.

"I could never hate you, you know this. A mothers love never dies. I will love you no matter what happens" She kissed his head, "Are you pregnant?"

"No mama" A strained laugh escaped his lips, then he swallowed hard as his mouth felt too dry. "I...I just..." 

"Yes? Is ok, my baby. Whatever you need" 

"I...I can't...I want to be your son" 

Silence. Then more silence. His heart raced as he waited for an answer, but she didn't say anything. He panicked, tears welling up in his eyes again, "Mama?" 

"I always liked Oswald for a boy" She said, smiling down at her son. 

Oswald burst into tears again, but this time grinning widely, "I like that too" 

"We should cut your hair, yes? Is too long for a boy. Come, I cut it for you" Gertud jumped up and rushed to her room to find the old razor she had, glad that she had refused to get rid of it as it could have been helpful one day. And today was that day. 

Oswald grabbed one of the dining chairs and a towel from the bathroom, and sat down as his mother came back in and plugged it in. She gently began to shave his hair on the sides to one length, then used scissors to neaten up the hair on top. Although she had little to no experience with men's hair, the end result looked ok. When she had finished and brushed the hair off of him, he rushed into the bathroom to see.

As soon as he saw himself, his heart leapt out of his chest. There he was. The person he had been searching for all his life. Tears streamed down his face as he laughed happily, running a hand through his hair. It wasn't amazing, but he felt better already. 

"Do you like it?" Gertrud walked over with a hand on her chest, a sad smile on her face. "You look so much more like your father. You always did" 

His heart leapt at her words. "Thank you, mama!" Oswald grinned at her and pulled her into another hug, "I love you" 

"I love you too, my little boy"

He knew it would a long journey until he would feel entirely like himself, and people wouldn't feel the same about his new hair or the new him. Ignorant people would never see him as anything but Ilka Kapelput. But as long as his mother held him in her arms like she always had, and still loved him just as much, he was happy. 


End file.
